Saturday, 24 July 2010

Saturday 24 July

A very wet start to the day, but the rain appears to be moving away into the Minch. I'm processing the Napier Report into the conditions of the crofters of the Highlands and Islands from 1883. The excerpt, presented in the previous post, is an example of the arbitrary nature of the some of the clearances.

The Scottish Government has turned down an invitation from a US Senate Committee to answer questions on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Megrahi, in August 2009. The United States government was unhappy with that decision, taken on humanitarian grounds. There are suspicions that the release was linked to an oil deal between BP (yes, them) and Libya. However, the Scottish Government is independent of the UK government as regards justice matters. Neither Justice Secretary, Kenny Macaskill, nor First Minister Alex Salmond, are prepared to go to Washington, saying it is an autonomous matter for Scotland, on which they are solely answerable to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

I do understand that the USA has a vested interest in the Lockerbie disaster, bearing in mind that most of the casualties were US citizens. However, 11 of the dead were citizens of the town of Lockerbie, and the crime took place on Scottish soil.

I just want to make one closing remark on the issue of immigration, which I raised this week. I understand that illegal immigrants are treated as if they are legal immigrants. That is patently wrong, and an issue sorely neglected by successive administrations (both Republican and Democrat). I will go so far as to commend the current administration for at least addressing the issue. Please bear in mind that the number of illegal immigrants in the US is 11 million, and just kicking the 6 million Mexicans among them back across the Rio Grande is not practicable. I don't think it is up to me to be in favour or against the currently proposed measures, bearing in mind the strength of feeling on the issue that I have detected in comments on preceding blog posts.